Contaminated Food Research Paper

Government Regulations on Food

Food contamination, the presence of harmful chemicals and microorganisms in food, continues to become a pressing problem in the United States. According to Baher Kamal, “contaminated food affects one in ten people around the world- or around 700 million people as a result” (1). Although, the number of people being affected by food contamination is rising, government regulations are loosely enforced. Government agencies such as the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attribute most of the blame to lack of funding. These agencies are not enforcing their regulations, and because of this, the recall process of contaminated food continues to be voluntary. If contaminated foods are not forced to be removed from consumer stores, Americans will be at a greater risk of different illnesses and

Companies are not required to reveal where the product was sold - whether to a store, a school, a restaurant or another manufacturer that [puts] it in other products” (Dewey “FDA”). Since food agencies do not place restraints on manufactures, the public does not have access to the information regarding the cleanliness of the food made by producers. “Virtually all commercialized genetically engineered food crops have novel [bacteria, viruses], and/or other DNA never before seen in foods” (Dewey “20 percent”). The public is not allowed access to the types of bacteria, viruses, or DNA that is used to engineer the food; because of this, people are not aware of the potential side effects of the engineered food. This could cause new diseases to spread, according to Bahar Kamal, “over 70 percent of new disease have animal orgrin” (1). Due to this increase of diseases people are being affected and agencies are still not requiring the manufacturing to ensure the cleanliness of the food